I don’t like to play favorites with my recipes. I enjoy almost all of the cakes and frostings that I make. However, I will openly admit that my favorite frosting is chocolate cream cheese frosting.

The chocolate cream cheese frosting recipe is at the bottom of this post, but first I want to talk about the key ingredient – cocoa powder.

Which Cocoa Powder to Use in Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting?

The best cocoa powder for you to chose for your chocolate cream cheese frosting entirely depends on your tastes and to whom you are serving your baked goods.

One of the best blog posts I’ve read in a while was on the Evite blog. I wasn’t a regular reader (it’s now in my RSS), but I happened to be over there sending out at Evite when I came across a cookie taste test blog post.

The blog author (there was no name cited) talks about an experiment where he/she served three different types of Toll House chocolate chip cookies:

Homemade with high end ingredients (like real vanilla extract)

Homemade with cheap ingredients (like imitation vanilla extract)

A store bought log of dough

Surprisingly to me and perhaps other ingredient snobs, the author found that “there was no clear favorite, and very few people guessed correctly. The people who were used to the log seemed to like it best. Those who tended to eat high-end ingredients favored the expensive cookies.” The conclusion of the post was that you needed to know your audience.

Some of the more expensive single-origin cocoa powders that I prefer do not taste anything like Hershey’s. They have a much more complex flavor. The flavor is so different that my mother-in-law thought that there was some mystery ingredient in the frosting to account for the different taste.

Well from one high-maintenance chocolate lover to another…Bwahahahahah. ;-) Glad to hear your own take.I need to get back into the chocolate groove, I’ve been in a marshmallow funk. Literally. I’m a freak for cream cheese frosting so I’m thinking this might do the trick. And YAY! to Askinosie for listening to their customers. Major kudos.

I think the fact that there are a lot of things modifying the ingredients (the addition of eggs, baking, heavy ingredients like cream cheese) really dulls the impact of the more expensive ingredients. When the recipe is much simpler (3-4 ingredients) or is uncooked, it becomes more obvious. Although when a recipe calls for Dutch-processed I always use Valrhona– just because of the deep color :) I think the speckled frosting has a unique charm of its own :)

That cocoa powder looks great! I can definitely see the difference between the first batch and the second batch, though. Kudos to the company that took stock in what their customers had to say and improved their product!

I am a firm believer in using high-end, quality ingredients, even though I have no proof that people can tell a difference. Strangely, as I’m typing this I’m eating Toll House cookie dough out of the tube. I suppose convenience just wins out sometime.

Just to let any one know who lives in St Louis that Cioccolato has added the Askinosie Cocoa to its retail line of fine chocolates. They are located at St. Louis Union Station or the web site is http://www.Iluvchocolate.com

I just made this frosting and it is amazing!! I used Van Houten Cocoa because thats what I keep on hand. I can’t imagine it tasting better, but I’m thinking I will have to try to find some of this Askinosie Cocoa for the next time since I plan on making this frosting for everything chocolate in the future! I am going to use it to frost a banana cake for my sons birthday tomorrow…that is if there is any left!! I’m looking forward to trying it with the cake. Thanks for a GREAT recipe!

I made this last night. Differences in how I made it: higher butter-cream cheese ratio (an accident), less powdered sugar. It was much darker than the frosting you posted, as well, which can only be attributed to the cocoas. I used Omanhene, Ghanan cocoa. It’s perfectly smooth, imo perhaps moreso than the second variety you got the sample of. But to be honest, idk a whole bunch about chocolate. In any case, the frosting is deathly rich, and I like that it’s more more cream-cheesy than buttery. For my purposes, I might use a little less cocoa next time (it’s the filling for an already obnoxioiusly rich and chocolatey fudge cake, with a fudgy ganache frosting), but as is it would be perfect paired with something less decadent.

Hi — I am making your flourless chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for passover dessert. Do the cupcakes need to remain refrigerated until eaten b/c of the cream cheese frosting? Thanks for any tips!

I’m sure the health dept. would say to keep them in the fridge. I tend to leave my cupcake with cream cheese frosting out of the fridge though and have had no problems. I guess if you can stick them in the fridge great, but if you have no room, I wouldn’t worry about it.

Random here but I just wanted to say thank you!! I googled for a chocolate cream cheese recipe and yours was the first, I took a chance and it was AMAZING. I didn’t even like cream cheese frosting before, but your recipe changed that for me :D I even used the crappy ingredients my parents had (Hershey’s cocoa and generic everything else) and it still rocked! Thanks again!

Eliza..you just mentioned that your parents had crappy ingredients..Hey girl..go purchase your own and be a happy camper..your folks do the best they can I am sure..I am a parent and I have “crappy” ingredients..and my foods taste great.
I guess it rubbed me wrong that you would find fault with your folks foods..when you are getting them for nothing..!

Yep, yours is a great recipe. I can cook, but my baking is not the best. Here I am trying to teach my seven year old daughter how to bake…..I thought I better go for an easy frosting. So we too googled the chocolate cream cheese frosting. We loved it – even with our generic chocolate powder. Good work~jan

I think this is my new favorite chocolate frosting! So easy and the consistency is fabulous. I just used the Hershey’s cocoa I had on hand, but I did sift it. Thanks for the recipe and the entertaining entry. (btw, it is great for mud frosting for worm cakes.)

This recipe is amazing! I had a friends birthday a few weeks ago, and wanted to experiment, so i decided to make red velvets. Although traditionally done with a regular cream cheese icing decided to change it up and make chocolate cream cheese icing and stumbled upon the blog. It was the best icing ever! it was a big hit with my friends and family.

It would be SO-o-o helpful for us Europeans if you would post your recipes with metric measures as well. Also, I don’t know whether ‘1 8oz’ means ‘one 8oz’ or ’18oz’, and I have no idea what a ‘stick’ is. I shall try it anyway, using intelligent (I hope) guesswork, ‘cos it looks and sounds so good.

Anon – It’s one 8oz. Hope it works out for you. And – 1 stick = 1/2 cup which is the equivalent of 4 ounces or 113 grams. I’ll see about adding metric conversions in the future. Sorry it’s rough on you guys. Thanks for reading!

hey..it looks awesome! will definite give it a try :)just needed to know that will the frosting stay without the cupcakes being refrigerated for 2-3 hours or will it start to melt?i live in dubai and due to the extremely warm climate, i really advise on how to keep the frosting intact without being refrigerated..n which ingredients to use..would really appreciate feedback. thanks :)

I love your vanilla bean frosting and now I’m going to try this. I usually use Valrohna cocoa powder but I’m going to try the single origin cocoa powder if I can find it. How do you think the tast will differ between the two cocoa powders?

Yum! My husband requested I make a cake in celebration of the Marine Corps’ 235th birthday this year. I used your recipe for the frosting. There wasn’t even a crumb left in the pan! Huge hit. I’ll be using this recipe again.

I love it! Its so thick it actually broke my cheap mixer. My bf hates unsweetened cocoa though and I had to add waaaay more sugar to get it to the point where he said it was ok. By then it was starting to taste a tad like the canned stuff (too sweet for me). But I guess if it tastes like store bought then the people at work will like it.

Thank you for the sweet inspiration. What wonderful frosting for my cocoa buttermilk cuppy’s!! I used some criollo cocoa I had from Ah Cacao in MX. It’s what I had until I can get Askinosie although I have been thrilled with my Mexican Chocolate!!! It was uncious and Chocolatey. I tinkered with it by accident and still it was amazing. Thank you againAmyRuth

This is my first visit to your blog and I am in love. I found the recipes for homemade Bailey’s and can’t wait to try that. I already love cream cheese frosting so I bet chocolate cream cheese frosting will only make things better. I can’t wait to try some of your recipes!

I made a cake like this for my mom’s cake, but another baker helped me. The cake was a huge hit, and everyone wanted me to make one for a baby shower we were having. The baker who had helped me before was out of town at the time, so I went online and looked up the recipe and it was even better than the first time! Now they demand I make them a cake every get-together we have.

Thx in advance, I wanna try this for my sons cake that I’m making for his birthday on Saturday. I am not a professional baker, and certainly not a good baker on top of that. But I’m determined to get this right because everyone else’s cakes that have been made for my son taste so buttery, and now that I’m researching and figuring out that most frostings are made with shortening…I’m a little sick to my stomach. I have combed through the web for days in search of how to make the best frosting. I’v already experimented with a couple of recipes, and…they flopped. They called for flour and milk and confectioners sugar. There was one with cream cheese also, but it called for whipped cream and smashed Oreos. I’m at a toss up, and Do NOT WANT the cake to melt outside. I’m making two layered cake. Should I freeze it, if so how long does it take for a cake and it’s frosting to unthaw, and will the cream cheese go bad if it’s outside for more than three hours? Sorry such a long post but I’m desperate to find the perfect frosting.

I just realized that I never left feedback for this recipe although it’s my favorite cream cheese frosting recipe. It’s amazing! Absolutely perfect in every way. I’ll never try a different chocolate cream cheese frosting recipe. People at work always ask me for frosting recipes and I just send them to this page. :)

This frosting is fantastic! All I had on hand was Ghiridelli cocoa powder and it was excellent.TIP: BE SURE to have your butter and cream cheese at room temp or it won’t be smooth..if it won’t fully incorporate, hold a hot dishrag (I just held the dishrag under hot water) on the outside of your mixing bowl as it beats until it smoothes out…This is the best chocolate frosting I have ever had! Thanks for the recipe!!

Few questions – Im making the cupcakes for my neices birthday party a day in advance because baking them and frosting them on the day of will be to hectic. If I make the frosting a day before will it go bad? And how would I store it to keep its texture and flavour?

Quality of the cocoa powder does matter. I would also just buy the most expensive brand of cocoa powder at the grocery store due to convenience. But if I have a choice I would drive all the way to the southside just to buy this awesome cocoa powder. I immediately noticed the difference. My cake and icing is more chocolatey when I used the specialty store cocoa powder.

I have a question about the nutritional value of the frosting…not only do i not usually like the store frostings because they are too sweet, they usually contain trans fat! So I’ve been wanting to try and make my own to try and make it trans fat free…would this recipe/your other recipes qualify as trans fat free?

Anon – I’m not a nutritional expert. I avoid anything that has partially hydrogenated oils and use butter instead of shortening, but I really can’t say for sure if my recipes are trans-fat free. I just don’t know enough about it.

hi i really want to try this recipe but im new at this stuff and i want to know when u say 1/2 C cocoa powder do u mean 1/2 cup or C is something else? and can someone tell me how much are the 8 ozs to grams? thanks

I made this frosting to put on top of a box cake mix for my dad’s 57th Birthday today. I love cream cheese frosting because they aren’t over-sweet like a lot of traditional frosting – especially chocolate. This frosting gives you that chocolatey flavor in a creamy frosting without the sugar-induced coma after effects. I’ve never seen a cream cheese frosting recipe that called for butter, but I think I like it! What’s not to like? It’s butter! Thanks for the recipe!

Hi, I have been making cream cheese frosting and most people enjoy it. But one day we put the cupcakes in the balcony as there was no room in the fridge. It was winter and very cold outside. The cheesecake frosting tasted so good cold. I am wondering, would the frosting still work if I didn’t set it to room temperature and just made it right out of the fridge?

Stef, I made this chocolate cream cheese recipe today and it was delicious. I made two errors. First, I mixed the coca and powder sugar together in the bowl I mix in. Thinking I wanted to mix them well. Then when I dumped the cream cheese on the coca and sugar mix I instantly said “UH OH”. My second mistake was that the cream cheese wasn’t fully warm at room temperature. It was still kinda cool. So anyway I dumped the butter on the mix and started mixing with my standard mixer. All of a sudden my 2 year old mixer burned out. I thought “well its old, ill go buy a new one” I went out to buy a new one and after I started mixing I added a tsp of whipping cream to help. Well the second (new) mixer burned out too!!!!!! I had mixed it well enough to start piping. So I just want to warn women out there not to do what I did and try to use a professional mixer lol. Now I have two broken mixers :'(… lol

just looking at this recipe and the comments is giving me a choc craving!! what would you suggest if not an electric mixer? i don’t particuarally want mine to break. i’m going to experiment and try a thin layer of this on brownies :P

I used good ‘ol Hershey’s chocolate (unsweetened powder) and this frosting was so good I could take a bath in it. Seriously. Amazing. No changes, no additions. even used a generic cream cheese (because that’s all there was) and it was amazing.

I live in Caracas, Venezuela,so getting hold of fresh locally-produced cocoa (cacao) powder isn’t too difficult. The whole process, depending on where it comes from, is relatively small batch- from cutting the pod off the trees, removing the seeds, sun-drying them and grinding them. I’ve been to a small town on the Caribbean coast where they dry the seeds on a concrete plaza in front of the town church, turning the seeds in the sun with large wooden rakes. The grinders are the same machines they’ve been using for decades and decades. Looking for any low fat edge I can get, I found a recipe substituting a tablespoon of fat-free milk for the butter. It also included a teaspoon of vanilla extract, which helped because I had to hand-mix it as our ancient electric mixer gave up the ghost just as I was starting to blend everything. Obviously, the keys are: 1) having the cream cheese nice and soft 2) adding the milk and vanilla liquids right on top of the cheese, THEN mixing in the powdered sugar, and 3) mixing in the powdered cocoa last.

Even without the richness of the butter, this frosting was so good (on carrot cake) that a family friend, an older woman from Italy who can cook rings around me, insisted I give her the recipe and show her how I did it imediately after finishing her second helping.

I loved this recipe. It was also stiff enough to make my cupcakes look fabulous as well as taste awesome! I made these for the girls softball team during a tournament and they loved it. If it comes from me, its got to be good and this was great! thanks

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Thank you so much for this recipe! I made it for my husband’s birthday cake tomorrow and I snuck way too many little tastes of the frosting ;) I know he’ll love it just as much as me. Thanks again, and aloha!

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I was just wondering about the color of this frosting is it pretty dark? Also what about the consistency? I’m making a cake with a dirt bike track on the top and need a frosting that stiff enough to make jumps but not so stiff that it is crumbly or doesn’t stick to the cake

The color depends on the type of cocoa powder that you use. Use a dutch processed cocoa (something like Hershey’s Special Dark) if you want it to be really dark. You can control the stiffness by added more or less powdered sugar.

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Hi, I made this recipe, and just want to tell you thank you, thank you, thank you! It’s the best chocolate frosting that I’ve ever tasted. It’s not only delicious but also really light for the cream cheese that every body in my family like it.

I also post it on my blog and took some pictures. Even though it’s in spanish, her’s the link…

I tried this recipe today and ive got to say, ITS MIND BLOWINGLY GOOD. I did however add 2 more tablespoons of cocoa for that extra chocolatey flavour. But its just way too good. I was initially afraid to try it because i didnt think creamcheese and chocolate would be that awesome. But this had made it into my top 5 frosting recipes :D

OMG!!!! Just made this for the first time. I will never eat another chocolate frosting again. I am going to add a little vanilla extract next time, but this is an absolute go to from now on. My hubby has his favorite icing and now I have mine. Thanks so much for posting this!!!!

This is without competition the very best chocolate cupcake recipe I’ve ever encountered . These cupcakes will solve all of life’s problems and may even broker peace in the Middle East. Sprinkles and other cupcake specialty shops cannot even come close to this level of deliciousness. Do not google any other cupcake recipe! Ever again !!

I used this recipe for the first time today. I love any cream cheese frosting and this one BLEW MY MIND!!! I never use the entire recipe for most frostings but that was not the case here. This will become my go-to recipe for chocolate frosting. Thank you for sharing!!!

Meh? I hate to be a downer, but I am indifferent to this frosting. I made as written, for chocolate cupcakes. Dosen’t take my breath away, like chocolate ganash. I think I am more of a mock-whip cream frosting gal.